Fireworks
by illusionary science
Summary: "At exactly nine the first one is sent up into the sky, everyone jumps and swings their heads around to look at it, a moment of complete synchronisation, a gasp of surprise before the eyes light up and smile flit across faces. In that moment, he doesn't feel alone"a quick little oneshot that started out as my feelings on a fireworks display and ended as a look into Desmond's psyce


He doesn't have family to watch with and his friends will all be at parties or working.

He goes anyway.

He arrives a couple of minutes early but the park is packed anyway, still he manages to find a good spot.

As he waits he watches the children dashing around the park, throwing glow sticks in the air. It's too early for sparklers, that comes later.

At exactly nine the first one is sent up into the sky, everyone jumps and swings their heads around to look at it, a moment of complete synchronisation, a gasp of surprise before the eyes light up and smile flit across faces.

In that moment he doesn't feel alone.

The fireworks continue, mostly small ones, littered with flashes of colour that slowly dance away on the wind.

It's the big ones that get he enjoys.

Not for the colour or the size, rather for the sound. A crack like thunder, rumbling through the sky and burying itself in his stomach, seconds after the lights burst open.

They get more elaborate as the night goes on, some twist in the sky in strings of gold; others fly high with no sign of stopping.

Some make a sound like a large object dropping as they fly upwards before bursting into an array of colours; to him it seems like falling in reverse.

The larger ones begin dropping pieces that explode into light to create new fireworks, slowly floating to the ground.

The wind stills, not that it was particularly noticeable before and now the flickers fall faster.

To him it looks like falling stars, and he finds it incredibly sad because they can only fly for a moment, only for a few seconds before they're falling and no one's paying attention anymore because a new one has already cracked open the sky, and it can't possibly be good enough to earn more than a second of attention.

The next one is large, he watches it after it explodes, counting.

One, two.

That's as far as he gets before another springs into the sky, dazzling the night for a moment.

But that moment passes too and the attention is diverted to the other fireworks.

This time the sky is lit with a group and it holds the audience's attention for a full fifteen seconds before fizzling out.

It figures that the group would hold more attention than the loner. (Silently he wonders when it became about him)

The final firework is huge, it crackles away to almost nothing before the sparks alight themselves and rumble across the sky.

He stands and begins the trek home.

Its ten minutes before the echo of fireworks leaves his stomach and he stops seeing lights when he closes his eyes.

He sits for a moment in his apartment, just thinking.

He recalls the final firework, the finale. He recalls the build-up and recalls the audience clapping and cheering, maybe it was for the pyrotechnics crew. (But he has a feeling it was for the fireworks)

And he thinks that maybe he can be something more than what he is set to be.

He wonders how long he can hold the world's attention for.

The next day he buys a motorcycle and the second he's given his licence he starts counting.

Waking up from the Animus for the first time, he is still counting.

But it isn't until after he's escaped that he recalls the fireworks.

He doesn't forget the light or the sound and he doesn't stop counting.

Because he can be more, he plans to outshine the firework.

The part he always forgets, though, is the part when the individual lights begin to fall.

They look so much like falling stars.

And he feels so much like a fallen angel.

Because he can still feel _her _blood, dripping on his hands.

He can still see the life leaving _her_ eyes.

He can still hear the gasp of surprise and pain as the mechanism clicks into place and he jams it into _her _stomach. (Some part of him wonders if it feels like fireworks)

When Clay sacrifices himself and he wakes up, he feels lonely.

He knows everyone, but he feels lonely.

It feels like sitting in that park, waiting for the show to begin and watching the families chatting and laughing.

He feels lonely, but he doesn't stop counting.

He won't stop counting until the day he dies.

A/N well… that was dark, I honestly didn't expect that when I started writing… in any case happy New Year.


End file.
